Rodolphe Bresdin

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Rodolphe Bresdin
1822-1885
Flemish Interior
1857
Pen and black ink on paper.
8 1/8 x 9 1/8 inches (206 x 232 mm)
Purchased as the gift of Mrs. Arthur G. Cohen in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Morgan Library and the 50th anniversary of the Association of Fellows, and as the gift of Hamilton Robinson, Jr., and Mrs. John Hay Whitney.
2000.31
Notes: 

Bresdin's use of drawing was often preparatory for his prints, but as this sheet and several related works demonstrate, his method was not always linear. This depiction of a Flemish interior is related to a print of the same title dated 1856 in the first state, with the sixth and last state produced between 1876 and 1880 (see Van Gelder vol. 2, no. 86). A summary drawing on tracing paper, which reverses the print composition, is in the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Mass. (1959:3; Van Gelder, vol. 2, 45). Van Gelder notes that it may have been traced from an early etched state, creating an independent variant of the composition. The Morgan's pen drawing, unknown to Van Gelder and dated by the artist 1857, is larger than the print and repeats the composition of the print except for some of the more minor details. These works were followed by a less densely detailed variant of the composition in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, dated 1860 (see Van Gelder, vol. 1, fig. 62). There is also an unlocated tracing of the Paris sheet.
As the title suggests, this rustic interior scene was inspired by seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish domestic views, especially the work of Adriaen van Ostade. The scene was published as a frontispiece in the "Revue fantaisiste" on 15 May 1861, and Bresdin continued to work on the plate and produce new states of the print.

Inscription: 

Signed in pen and black ink in script and dated at lower center, "Bresdin Rodolphe 1857".
Watermark: none

Provenance: 
Claude Roger-Marx; Ian Woodner Family Collection, New York.
Associated names: 

Roger-Marx, Claude, 1888-1977, former owner.
Woodner, Ian, former owner.
Cohen, Arthur G., Mrs., donor.
Robinson, Hamilton, donor.
Whitney, Betsey Cushing Roosevelt, 1908-1998, donor.

Bibliography: 

Gelder, Dirk Van, and Bresdin, Rodolphe. "Rodolphe Bresdin / Dirk Van Gelder ; [traduit Du Néerlandais Par J. Amiel Et M. Stordiau]." La Haye: M. Nijhoff, 1976.

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